• (cs) in reply to David G
    David G:
    Depends where in the world you come from. A lot of European countries use the full-stop as a thousands separator, and the comma as a decimal point (I suppose, it then becomes the decimal comma).
    Yep, and at least in Catalan "8,2" is pronounced "vuit coma dos".
  • dibbler (unregistered) in reply to sas
    sas:
    Matthew:
    Shadowman:
    Actually, once you get as far as the 6th of Twent-Quintember, the days are more than 50 hours long.
    That would probably be better written as twent-tritember, assuming we don't get any more narcissistic emperors.

    And don't knock the English date form, unless you think the time should be represented as HH:SS:MM.

    That's just silly. The English time form is MM:SS:HH.

    No, MM:SS:HH is the American form. The British form is SS:MM:HH.

  • AJS (unregistered) in reply to Hatshepsut

    In the UK, a dot is used between the integer and the fraction and a comma used to be used between thousands, millions and so on -- modern practice is to use a non-breaking space. On the Continent, a comma is used between the integer and the fraction and a non-breaking space is used to separate thousands, millions &c. (Old-fashioned people may still use a dot.) This actually makes good sense; a comma is easier to write with a fountain pen (Continentals consider ball-point pens vulgar) and harder to miss (especially in a photocopy or fax; which can also create extra unwanted dots due to the presence of specks of dirt in the mechanism). If your groups of three digits run together, it's not usually as big a disaster as mistaking one-and-a-half for fifteen!

  • (cs) in reply to David G
    David G:
    jakkle:
    you are wrong. hideously wrong. a comma denotes thousands or millions etc - used before a group of 3 digits eg: 3,000 15,000,500 ...
    Depends where in the world you come from. A lot of European countries use the full-stop as a thousands separator, and the comma as a decimal point (I suppose, it then becomes the decimal comma).
    Yep, decimal comma it is called. The world is fairly evenly divided on this issue though, AFAIK. In any case, all of this can be avioded by using space as a thousand/ten thousand/hundred separator. Like so:

    200 00 (hindi or whatever) 2 000 000 (western) 200 0000 (Japanese/asian)

    This way, encountering a comma, period, colon, semicolon, or anything weird at all can be interpreted as a decimal separator.

  • Shadowman (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    'Kay.

    I'm tired. I'm caffeine-free. I have to start work in Bracknell tomorrow. My life is basically over.

    But have any of you idiots actually looked at the dialog box?

    This is not about money, folks. This is not an I18N issue. This is nothing to do with commas, periods (or full stops), quantity of digits between the terminals ... none of that.

    LOOK AT IT!

    35.00 > 24.00.

    Do you follow?

    Remedial math is available at cripplingly high rates. I don't promise you'll pass. I just promise it will hurt.

    But in a good way.

    This gets my vote for dumbest response of the whole thread.

  • arrrgh (unregistered) in reply to Disgruntled Dutchie
    Disgruntled Dutchie:
    jakkle:
    SomeCoder:
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that second one really mean 30 pounds per day? Don't they use the ',' as we Americans use '.' ?

    I guess it's a bit of a WTF that they have all the digits after that, but technically, it should read 30 pounds per day, right?

    I could be wrong.

    you are wrong. hideously wrong. a comma denotes thousands or millions etc - used before a group of 3 digits eg: 3,000 15,000,500 1,234,567,890,098,765,432.00

    not everyone can be bothered to use it though

    Nice to hear that my whole country are "Hideously Wrong". Gotta love those bad-ass "On-line Attitudes" that keep popping up.

    Thumbs up!

    You Dolt! He's not saying your whole country is Hideously Wrong, he's saying that 'somecoder' is hideously wrong in assuming that the UK uses their commas and decimals that way.

  • (cs) in reply to Matthew
    Matthew:
    Shadowman:
    Actually, once you get as far as the 6th of Twent-Quintember, the days are more than 50 hours long.
    That would probably be better written as twent-tritember, assuming we don't get any more narcissistic emperors.
    [threadmerge]Does Emperor James Kirk count?
  • (cs) in reply to fake armadillo
    fake armadillo:
    The real WTF is the forum software, and so on, and so on.

    No, the real WTFs are the posters who can't figure out that they should hit 'Quote' instead of 'Reply' when they want to quote the post they're responding to, and then blame their lack of common sense on the forum software.

  • Julia (unregistered)

    I think they must have written it for a shop I used to work in. Been there, done that, got the caffeine poisoning trying to stay awake...

  • a dog (unregistered)

    Funny, especially on the first of the month! Happy August, everyone!

    I thought you had stopped updating Popup Potpourri...I'll go check the Error'd index... it's going on my bookmark list!

  • grump (unregistered) in reply to Taz
    Taz:
    standgale:
    whatever happened to using ' to denote thousands? eg $30'000.00, or $1'000'000 :D

    Anyway, I'm sure that's what I learnt in school and now no one does it any more. (ps. is "learnt" a word? I was sure it was a word, but it always comes up with a red "you spelt this wrong" line underneath in anything that has a spellchecker. And so does "spelt" apparently. What's up with these spell-checkers?)

    As an ass backward country, Switzerland still uses ' as a thousand separator. Avoids confusion. :)

    And your spell-checkers are right. It's "learned" and "spelled". See, no red underline.

    But spellcheckers really shouldn't complain over 'spelt', it is a perfectly good grain, quite tasty when used well. ;)

  • Jeremy Weiskotten (unregistered) in reply to QAHatesYou
    QAHatesYou:
    As a point of order, "less" is grammatically incorrect in the validation message, too. It should be "fewer."

    Nice catch!

  • (cs) in reply to fake armadillo
    fake armadillo:
    Wow, way to be an arrogant asshole about something no one else actually misunderstood. (May I suggest a course in reading comprehension?)
    You're quite right, and real_aardvark did engage flamethrower before checking brain was in gear... but I think we can forgive him this once.

    I mean, Bracknell...

  • (cs) in reply to arrrgh
    arrrgh:
    You Dolt! He's not saying your whole country is Hideously Wrong, he's saying that 'somecoder' is hideously wrong in assuming that the UK uses their commas and decimals that way.
    Of course, the real hideous mistake is the assumption that the UK is actually part of Europe. ;)
  • (cs) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    vt_mruhlin:
    Especially when you consider that there's also a .00 at the end. Translating that to 3.000,00 would really make no sense.

    Actually, when you swap , and . to use that standard, it makes perfect sense. It still amounts to 30 thousand pounds (30.000,00) or as you wrote it above, three thousand (3.000,00). Changing standards takes some getting used to, of course. (Germany isn't the only country that swaps the meaning from ours based on my experience in the Mediterranean. Hindi, according to the Linux link, separates every two digits greater than the 100s.)

    The Indian numbering system is even trickier when speaking, because they often use the terms lakh for a hundred thousand (written as 1,00,000 in Indian style) and crore for ten million (written as 1,00,00,000 in Indian style). Whenever I hear Indians talking about salaries or housing costs, trying to do all the unit and currency conversions in your head can get confusing.

  • Anonymous Otaku (unregistered) in reply to Fuji
    Fuji:
    Pecos Bill:
    vt_mruhlin:
    Especially when you consider that there's also a .00 at the end. Translating that to 3.000,00 would really make no sense.

    Actually, when you swap , and . to use that standard, it makes perfect sense. It still amounts to 30 thousand pounds (30.000,00) or as you wrote it above, three thousand (3.000,00). Changing standards takes some getting used to, of course. (Germany isn't the only country that swaps the meaning from ours based on my experience in the Mediterranean. Hindi, according to the Linux link, separates every two digits greater than the 100s.)

    And traditional Japanese counting used a comma every fourth digit (1,0000,0000.00) where the number ten-thousand (meaning 'a fullness' and pronounced 'man') is the basis for counting large numbers.

    "Man" can be usefully translated as "myriad", at least for the overeducated set.

  • Pedant (unregistered) in reply to standgale
    standgale:
    whatever happened to using ' to denote thousands? eg $30'000.00, or $1'000'000 :D

    Anyway, I'm sure that's what I learnt in school and now no one does it any more. (ps. is "learnt" a word? I was sure it was a word, but it always comes up with a red "you spelt this wrong" line underneath in anything that has a spellchecker. And so does "spelt" apparently. What's up with these spell-checkers?)

    CAPTCHA - what the hell's a vern?

    I like "learnt" and "spelt", personally. They're "strong" conjugations, and I'm rather fond of them. (A "strong" conjugation is one which indicates tense, number, etc. by changing a vowel rather than adding a suffix.) I think they're more British than American.

  • (cs) in reply to gwenhwyfaer
    gwenhwyfaer:
    fake armadillo:
    Wow, way to be an arrogant asshole about something no one else actually misunderstood. (May I suggest a course in reading comprehension?)
    You're quite right, and real_aardvark did engage flamethrower before checking brain was in gear... but I think we can forgive him this once.

    I mean, Bracknell...

    We once did some work for a large multinational defence group with a division in Bracknell. During an early visit, when we were on about our third time round the fourth roundabout on the way to dropping us off at the train station, our host (who commuted from London every day) muttered "I'd sooner kill myself than live in fucking Bracknell". After a short spell staying locally, we were commuting as well...

  • (cs) in reply to gwenhwyfaer
    gwenhwyfaer:
    fake armadillo:
    Wow, way to be an arrogant asshole about something no one else actually misunderstood. (May I suggest a course in reading comprehension?)
    You're quite right, and real_aardvark did engage flamethrower before checking brain was in gear... but I think we can forgive him this once.

    I mean, Bracknell...

    Thanks. You're quite right. And I apologise to all concerned.

    Four hours' upcoming sleep and a journey to Bracknell at 5:30 in the morning is not good for the soul. For anybody who's truly offended, btw, I'd recommend Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest."

    There's a "Lady Bracknell's Mews" round here. I wonder if you get a free handbag with every house?

  • Hognoxious (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    In all English speaking countries '.' is used.
    I thought South Africa didn't, though it's debatable if they're English speaking anyway. As an aside, India does something odd where they group in threes and twos (like 1,00,000) though it's debatable if they're English speaking either.
  • ELIZA (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Otaku
    Anonymous Otaku:
    Fuji:
    Pecos Bill:
    vt_mruhlin:
    Especially when you consider that there's also a .00 at the end. Translating that to 3.000,00 would really make no sense.

    Actually, when you swap , and . to use that standard, it makes perfect sense. It still amounts to 30 thousand pounds (30.000,00) or as you wrote it above, three thousand (3.000,00). Changing standards takes some getting used to, of course. (Germany isn't the only country that swaps the meaning from ours based on my experience in the Mediterranean. Hindi, according to the Linux link, separates every two digits greater than the 100s.)

    And traditional Japanese counting used a comma every fourth digit (1,0000,0000.00) where the number ten-thousand (meaning 'a fullness' and pronounced 'man') is the basis for counting large numbers.

    "Man" can be usefully translated as "myriad", at least for the overeducated set.

    Myria was actually a proposed metric prefix for 10^4. Also, Learnt and Spelt are quite acceptable English words, in the same way that Burned and Burnt are both acceptable, eg, "They burned it" and "It burnt".

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